Genetics
by Loomquawl
Summary: “She might not have been a pretender, but she knew a little something about pain.”


Title: Genetics  
  
Author: Loonquawl  
  
Summary:  "She might not have been a pretender, but she knew a little something about pain."   
  
Rating: PG, for some adult language.  
  
Spoilers: Post-ep for Keys  
  
Bastards.  
  
Fucking, violent, treacherous bastards.  She'd show them. Nobody messed with her like that, not unless they wanted to find vital parts of their anatomy missing.  
  
Her father, Sydney, fucking, crazy, fucking Raines, Jarod- oh especially Jarod.  She didn't care how many keys he sent her, how many times he saved her life, or that his eyes darkened with her pain when she looked at him.  He made her feel weak and he'd have to pay for that. You just wait, wonder boy. Next time there won't be any little girls for you to play doctor with. Next time will be the last time. You can count on that.     
  
Miss Parker grimaced as she layered concealer over her thumb, swollen and bruised from the handcuffs.  Her skin bruised easily, too easily, but nobody would ever have to know that.  Let them think that she was made of rock and not even bullet fire could touch her.  She turned her head and examined her profile, trying to find a flaw.  Her carefully applied make-up gave her skin like ice, lips the color of fresh blood, and shadowed eyes. If there was a doll that carried a Glock and wore heels as sharp as razors, she knew she would have made the perfect model.  
  
In the next room, the iron was still hot to the touch when she lifted it from her blouse. Her palm sizzled where she'd brushed against it, but her only reaction was to press her lips together before exhaling.  She might not have been a pretender, but she knew a little something about pain.   
  
Parker slipped on the warm blouse, tugging it slightly lower and straightening the edges.  In movies, she'd seen warriors adjusting their shields and knights shifting their armor and she'd recognized the gesture as her own.   
  
When she looked back up at the full length mirror on her door, she took an involuntary step back. She wondered if there would ever be a time when her reflection didn't startle her, didn't make her swivel around to see how her mother had managed to sneak up behind her.  She had her mother's face, her mother's cheekbones, her mother's long fingers, her mother's legs, and to her never-ending annoyance, her mother's eyes.  
  
It hadn't taken her long to figure out how to control her face, how not to betray her thoughts through a clenched fist or a wavering hand, but she's never been able to blink the pain away.  Forget diamond rings, forget empty houses, forget boys who grew up to be men with guilt complexes the size of small planets, her mother's gift to her was a face that never failed to remind daddy of his failure and eyes that teared up against her will.  She wasn't crying when he hit her was she? Bruised, bleeding, broken, dry eyed. She told you not to worry, not to- Stop it.  Just stop it.  
  
She couldn't imagine that anything, not even time, could work this kind of change.  It was more like a metamorphosis than a change really, the young girl with drawn cheeks and worried eyes, eager to please, turning into an adult with a face like a made-up cadaver and ragged bullet scars on her back.  A short bitter laugh was torn out of her as she realized that would make her a butterfly.   
  
The phone rang, and she considered not picking it up.  For over twenty years now, phone calls had brought her nothing but bad news.  Either that or Jarod and she wasn't sure which was worse.     
  
"What?" she barked.   
  
"Miss Parker, it occurred to me that I never got a chance to say goodbye.  I hope you'll understand that I was in a rush."  And the answer is door number two, she thought, considering slamming the phone down.   
  
"Next time, stick around," she said, rolling the words like silk in her mouth.  
  
"I look forward to it," he replied in an equally smooth tone.  "You should be getting a package in the mail any day now."  
  
"Oh, another gift from the boy wonder. Joy."  
  
"No, Miss Parker, not yet, but someday soon, I hope."  Great, more cryptic bullshit.  "I sent you part of a key."  
  
"A key for what, exactly?" she asked, almost snarling.  
  
"Why, the Centre of course.  We've always shared the same jailer, Miss Parker."  
  
"I'm nobody's prisoner, Jarod."  
  
"Look around you, and tell me if that's really true," he replied and hung up.  She didn't need to look around; she'd lived in this house her entire life and she knew every square inch of it like the back of her gun.  As usual, Jarod was just spinning his wheels.  The phone rang again and she growled her usual greeting into the phone.  
  
"Uh, Miss Parker, Raines, he's, he's lost it.  He's running around on a rampage, I think he's finally cracked. I-"  
  
"Calm down, Broots.  Where are you?"  
  
There was a long pause. "Hiding in the bathroom," he said, a hint of defiance in his voice.  
  
A short, cruel laugh escaped her lips.  "Don't move a muscle, Broots.  I'll be right there."   
  
On the way to the door, she stopped by her mother's old bronze mirror to adjust her hair one last time.  She smiled at herself, pleased at what she saw.  
  
She didn't have her mother's smile.  


End file.
